"At last we entered the Holy City, and arrived at Father's friend's
house, where we were made very welcome and treated most kindly. I soon
made friends with the boys, for, you know, I can speak yiddish quite
well.
"They are funny little chaps. They look like old men, with long kaftans
(coats) and side ear-locks of hair, carrying their prayer book or Bible
to Shule. The first thing I noticed was the tsitsith. They wear really
long ones, with long fringes hanging down about a quarter of a yard or
more. They wear them as we do a waistcoat, so that they can be seen by
everyone, not as we wear them in England, tucked away out of sight. Here
young and old, even little boys who can only just walk and lisp their
prayers, wear them, and, what is more, take a real pleasure in wearing
them. I asked some of them why they wore them so openly, and they
answered: 'Because when we look at them we always remember that our
chief duty in life is to try to obey God's commands, and if we had them
tucked away out of sight we should forget to be obedient.' 'Besides,'
they said, 'we are commanded in the Torah to do so openly.' Then I told
them if we wore them so openly in Europe we should perhaps be laughed at
by some people and made fun of. They said: 'Why should doing so make us
be laughed at by other nations? Do we laugh at the symbols and charms
that many of them wear? Every nation,' they said, 'has its tokens and
symbols, and we Jews have ours, and we should rejoice in wearing ours
when they are to help us to feel that God is near us when we think and
act rightly.' All this made me think very seriously, and in a way I had
never thought before. I began to realize that they were more in the
right than we Jews are in England.
"So now I have decided to wear my tsitsith, too, on the outside, as the
Jerusalem boys do. The boys never play except on the quiet, just now and
then, for their parents think that their only duty in life is to study
and do as many Mitzvoth as they can. Really, the boys are as full of fun
and pranks as we English boys, and they just love a bit of play and
larking when they can get it.
"I must now end this letter, but I have a lot more to tell you, and I
will keep my promise and write you by degrees of all I see. Meanwhile,
I send you the greeting of Zion and Sabbath. Rachael wanted to put a
letter into my envelope to your sister, but she says she has not
finished it yet, although she has already written ten pages. So I will
wait no longer, in case I miss the post, as it goes only once a week
from here, and sometimes only once a month."
Thus ended the first letter, and Benjamin's brothers and sisters were so
pleased with it that they were delighted that one of the bundle of
letters should be read aloud after the Sabbath meal on every Friday
evening.
Benjamin was quite happy now, for, although he had done a thing which
was not right, now that he had repented good would come out of it, for
there was a chance of their now having pleasanter and more instructive
Sabbath evenings than they had ever had before. Besides, he now made up
his mind always to wear his tsitsith.